Hopelessness (album)

Background and recording

Following her plaintive, chamber pop-styled work with the group Antony and the Johnsons in the early 2000s, Antony Hegarty changed her name to Anohni and began developing a radically different "Trojan horse" project that would instead feature a "glossy, plastic sound" while dealing more directly with political and environmental issues. Discussing her decision to move away from her earlier style, she reasoned: "at this point, I really feel like it’s all hands on deck. An artist that’s fiddle-faddling in opaque, gossamer gestures — I mean it’s fine to do that, totally fine, but there’s no time left." Conceptualized and recorded over three years, Anohni first began to collaborate with electronic musician Daniel Lopatin, whose work as Oneohtrix Point Never she had previously covered.

Anohni and Lopatin initially speculated on creating "a kind of Blade Runner–Kitarō–Japanimation soundtrack" before producer Ross Birchard, better known for his work in hip hop (cf. Kanye West) as Hudson Mohawke, became involved with the project in 2014. Birchard and Anohni had also collaborated on Birchard's 2015 album Lantern, during which time he sent Anohni the demo of what would become "Drone Bomb Me." Speaking to the New York Times, Anohni explained that "the kind of relentless, exuberant, almost ecstatic positiveness of Hudson’s music was the perfect foil for more challenging lyrics than people would be used to hearing from me." Both producers worked on the tracks, with Anohni also taking part in the production process; Mohawke recalled: "she’s not just writing these songs. She loves getting in there and twisting stuff up in Pro Tools and chopping stuff up and editing and rearranging. She’s permanently finding all of these little magic things that wouldn’t have occurred to us." Lopatin stated that "her range is crazy, the ideas are nuts, the movement is wild — you basically don’t have to do that much. "

Composition

Hopelessness is an electronic pop, dance, experimental, and synthpop album. Lyrically, Anohni developed a stark political approach which addressed issues such as surveillance, drone warfare, capital punishment and environmental crisis. She explained to Pitchfork that she drew influence from 80's dance music during the AIDS epidemic, stating that "rage is a really fun place to dance from—expressions of anger sublimated into something beautiful are invigorating, especially if you feel like you’re telling the truth." Critic Jon Pareles noted that "she comes at her topics from unexpected angles — sometimes identifying with forces of destruction, sometimes mourning their ravages." She attempted to maintain a focus on the personal:

I tried to keep a focus on myself in terms of addressing my complicity in so many of these issues — as a taxpayer, as a consumer, as a passive participant. I got to thinking perhaps as an artist, even as an artist with the best of intentions, that I was kind of a microcosm of the brokenness of the whole system. That within my body I contained the whole conflict.

Commenting on "4 Degrees" in a fan interview earlier in the year, Hegarty had stated that she had "grown tired of grieving for humanity", adding that she felt she "was not being entirely honest by pretending that I am not a part of the problem. '4 Degrees' is kind of a brutal attempt to hold myself accountable, not just valorize my intentions but also reflect on the true impact of my behaviors." The song "Obama" depicts disillusionment with the tenure of US President Barack Obama.

Promotion and release

On 23 February 2015, Anohni announced Hopelessness via the Antony and the Johnsons' website and Facebook account. In the announcement, Anohni described the album as "an electronic record with some sharp teeth". In a fan interview, Anohni described the upcoming album as "as different as could be from my previous work", adding she was "not sure that many of [those] who prefer the early chamber music style will enjoy it". Characterising it as a "dance / experimental electronic record with quite a dark thematic undertow", she revealed spring 2016 as the release date. On 30 November 2015, Anohni released "4 Degrees", the first song off of Hopelessness, along with an accompanying message: "In solidarity with the climate conference in Paris, giving myself a good hard look, not my aspirations but my behaviors, revealing my insidious complicity. It's a whole new world. Let’s be brave and tell the truth as much as we can."

On 9 March 2016, Anohni announced the release of the album's second single "Drone Bomb Me" via Facebook. The song, which premiered on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1 later that day, was accompanied by a music video which she described as "insanely beautiful". As revealed shortly after the announcement on Anohni's Instagram account, the video was directed by Nabil Elderkin and stars English supermodel Naomi Campbell. On the same day, Anohni also revealed that Hopelessness will be released on 6 May 2016, along with the album's track listing.

Critical reception

Hopelessness received acclaim from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 83, based on 30 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Tim Jonze of The Guardian called Hopelessness "as profound a protest record as anyone has made in decades, brimming with anger, and yet, somehow, oddly accessible," concluding that, "For all its bleakness, Hopelessness leaves you feeling anything but." Writing for Exclaim!, Andrea Warner characterized Hopelessness as "a shimmering, shadowy electronic pop protest record that thunders and sparks, avenges and retreats, attacks and empowers," noting Anohni's "ownership and authority over her artistic voice that we've not yet seen before." T. Cole Rachel of Spin called the album "a potent political statement," and described the music as "gorgeous, matching the intensity of the subject matter without overwhelming it and giving the appropriate space to ANOHNI’s voice, which remains a glorious instrument." Jenn Pelly of Pitchfork Media praised the album, stating, "Anohni, HudMo, and OPN meet on an astral plane and construct a sleek salon there, where we can reflect on the current moment and perhaps be spurred to action," calling the album "some of the most accessible and pristinely infectious music that any of these people have made. Writing for NPR, Ann Powers said of the album, "The subject matter on Hopelessness can be grisly — state-sponsored execution, torture, animals expiring in trees — but the music, and Anohni's singing especially, brings the emotional rush of revelation." Kenneth Partridge

Personnel